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When President Donald Trump pulled the plug on an upcoming trip to North Korea by his secretary of state, he pointed a finger of blame at China and the global superpower’s trade practices.

In his recent trade breakthrough with Mexico, Trump praised the country’s outgoing president for his help on border security and agriculture.

Both developments offered fresh evidence of how Trump has made trade policy the connective tissue that ties together different elements of his “America First” foreign policy and syncs up them with his political strategy for the 2020 presidential election.

Trump’s 2016 triumph was paved in part by his support among blue-collar voters in Midwestern manufacturing states that narrowly supported him over Democrat Hillary Clinton, including Michigan, Wisconsin, Ohio and Pennsylvania.

His aggressive trade tactics, epitomized by tariffs and standoffs with longtime economic partners and allies, are aimed at reversing what he has long viewed as unfair trade deals while maintaining support among largely white, working-class voters who have been hurt by the loss of manufacturing jobs.

“Trump understands that economic policy is foreign policy and vice versa,” said Stephen Moore, a former Trump campaign adviser and visiting fellow at The Heritage Foundation. “The most important element of foreign policy is to not just keep the world safe but to also promote America’s economic interest. That’s what Trump does — this is America First.”

It’s also good politics, in Trump’s view.

“It’s a populist position. But it’s also a popular position with a lot of Americans,” Moore said.

As he puts a high premium on trade gains, Trump is intertwining the issue with a host of top foreign policy concerns.

Trump, asked by reporters last week about North Korea living up to its commitments to denuclearize, said “part of the North Korean problem is caused by our trade disputes with China,” pointing to the U.S. trade imbalance with China.

“We have to straighten out our trade relationship because too much money is being lost by us,” Trump said. “And as you know, China is the route to North Korea.”

Trade has been a common refrain at the president’s rallies, where he has vowed to pursue “fair and reciprocal trade.”

“We don’t want stupid trade like we had for so long,” Trump said during a rally in Duluth, Minnesota, in June.

Trump’s second year as president has been marked by a number of trade disputes with traditional U.S. allies and global rivals alike, an approach cemented by his tweet that “trade wars are good.”

He imposed tariffs on steel and aluminum imports in March, prompting retaliation from the European Union and other American allies. Later in the month, Trump announced tariffs on China to combat what he called the theft of U.S. technology from a wide range of goods and services.

China struck back with its own sanctions on a variety of U.S. products, including Midwest farm-produced soybeans in a way to hit hard against the president’s base of voters. The two sides have clashed during the spring and summer, raising the stakes in their trade fight.

In late July, Trump and European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker reached a temporary deal at the White House to avert tariffs on automobile imports and a ramping up of their trade dispute — although the threat still remains.

After a breakthrough with Mexico, Trump’s team has been engaged in talks with Canada aimed at creating a new version of the 24-year-old North American Free Trade Agreement.

While previous administrations have often used a carrot-and-stick approach to trade as a way to forge agreements, before Trump’s arrival trade agendas had emphasized multi-lateral and bilateral deals aimed at maintaining U.S. leadership around the world, promoting American values and improving human rights.

This administration, by contrast, “is leveraging foreign policy tools to achieve its trade goals,” said Lori Wallach, director of Public Citizen’s Global Trade Watch.

Critics say Trump’s insistence on trade concessions could hamper his ability to move forward in other areas.

On North Korea, for example, Trump has sought to turn his meeting with Kim Jong Un into a vivid example of how his unconventional style can bring longstanding U.S. adversaries to the bargaining table.

But by raising China’s trade practices as essential to any progress to ensuring North Korea gets rid of its nuclear weapons, Trump runs the risk of getting bogged down in both areas — and having little to show for it.

Mixing foreign policy and trade policy introduces so many variables it’s “virtually impossible to close on a precise policy decision,” said Daniel Ujczo, a trade attorney with Dickinson Wright PLLC in Columbus, Ohio. “You’re constantly chasing after the next issue as opposed to having a very targeted approach to the objective.”
…

When President Donald Trump pulled the plug on an upcoming trip to North Korea by his secretary of state, he pointed a finger of blame at China and the global superpower’s trade practices.

In his recent trade breakthrough with Mexico, Trump praised the country’s outgoing president for his help on border security and agriculture.

Both developments offered fresh evidence of how Trump has made trade policy the connective tissue that ties together different elements of his “America First” foreign policy and syncs up them with his political strategy for the 2020 presidential election.

Trump’s 2016 triumph was paved in part by his support among blue-collar voters in Midwestern manufacturing states that narrowly supported him over Democrat Hillary Clinton, including Michigan, Wisconsin, Ohio and Pennsylvania.

His aggressive trade tactics, epitomized by tariffs and standoffs with longtime economic partners and allies, are aimed at reversing what he has long viewed as unfair trade deals while maintaining support among largely white, working-class voters who have been hurt by the loss of manufacturing jobs.

“Trump understands that economic policy is foreign policy and vice versa,” said Stephen Moore, a former Trump campaign adviser and visiting fellow at The Heritage Foundation. “The most important element of foreign policy is to not just keep the world safe but to also promote America’s economic interest. That’s what Trump does — this is America First.”

It’s also good politics, in Trump’s view.

“It’s a populist position. But it’s also a popular position with a lot of Americans,” Moore said.

As he puts a high premium on trade gains, Trump is intertwining the issue with a host of top foreign policy concerns.

Trump, asked by reporters last week about North Korea living up to its commitments to denuclearize, said “part of the North Korean problem is caused by our trade disputes with China,” pointing to the U.S. trade imbalance with China.

“We have to straighten out our trade relationship because too much money is being lost by us,” Trump said. “And as you know, China is the route to North Korea.”

Trade has been a common refrain at the president’s rallies, where he has vowed to pursue “fair and reciprocal trade.”

“We don’t want stupid trade like we had for so long,” Trump said during a rally in Duluth, Minnesota, in June.

Trump’s second year as president has been marked by a number of trade disputes with traditional U.S. allies and global rivals alike, an approach cemented by his tweet that “trade wars are good.”

He imposed tariffs on steel and aluminum imports in March, prompting retaliation from the European Union and other American allies. Later in the month, Trump announced tariffs on China to combat what he called the theft of U.S. technology from a wide range of goods and services.

China struck back with its own sanctions on a variety of U.S. products, including Midwest farm-produced soybeans in a way to hit hard against the president’s base of voters. The two sides have clashed during the spring and summer, raising the stakes in their trade fight.

In late July, Trump and European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker reached a temporary deal at the White House to avert tariffs on automobile imports and a ramping up of their trade dispute — although the threat still remains.

After a breakthrough with Mexico, Trump’s team has been engaged in talks with Canada aimed at creating a new version of the 24-year-old North American Free Trade Agreement.

While previous administrations have often used a carrot-and-stick approach to trade as a way to forge agreements, before Trump’s arrival trade agendas had emphasized multi-lateral and bilateral deals aimed at maintaining U.S. leadership around the world, promoting American values and improving human rights.

This administration, by contrast, “is leveraging foreign policy tools to achieve its trade goals,” said Lori Wallach, director of Public Citizen’s Global Trade Watch.

Critics say Trump’s insistence on trade concessions could hamper his ability to move forward in other areas.

On North Korea, for example, Trump has sought to turn his meeting with Kim Jong Un into a vivid example of how his unconventional style can bring longstanding U.S. adversaries to the bargaining table.

But by raising China’s trade practices as essential to any progress to ensuring North Korea gets rid of its nuclear weapons, Trump runs the risk of getting bogged down in both areas — and having little to show for it.

Mixing foreign policy and trade policy introduces so many variables it’s “virtually impossible to close on a precise policy decision,” said Daniel Ujczo, a trade attorney with Dickinson Wright PLLC in Columbus, Ohio. “You’re constantly chasing after the next issue as opposed to having a very targeted approach to the objective.”
…

President Donald Trump is starting his Labor Day with an attack on a top union leader.

Trump tweeted Monday that AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka “represented his union poorly on television this weekend.” He added: “it is easy to see why unions are doing so poorly. A Dem!”

Trumka appeared on “Fox News Sunday,” where he said efforts to overhaul the North American Free Trade Agreement should include Canada. He also said of Trump: “the things that he’s done to hurt workers outpace what he’s done to help workers.”

Trump then touted the economy, saying “Our country is doing better than ever before with unemployment setting record lows.”

The unemployment rate of 3.9 percent is not at the best point ever — it is near the lowest in 18 years.

 
…

President Donald Trump is starting his Labor Day with an attack on a top union leader.

Trump tweeted Monday that AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka “represented his union poorly on television this weekend.” He added: “it is easy to see why unions are doing so poorly. A Dem!”

Trumka appeared on “Fox News Sunday,” where he said efforts to overhaul the North American Free Trade Agreement should include Canada. He also said of Trump: “the things that he’s done to hurt workers outpace what he’s done to help workers.”

Trump then touted the economy, saying “Our country is doing better than ever before with unemployment setting record lows.”

The unemployment rate of 3.9 percent is not at the best point ever — it is near the lowest in 18 years.

 
…

It was a week of exaggeration and outright fiction for President Donald Trump as he sought to push through a trade pact with Mexico, hyped numbers on jobs and raged against Google and the Russia investigation.

He wrongly describes the deal to replace the three-nation North American Free Trade Agreement as “one of the largest” and made a questionable assertion that he has unilateral authority to exclude Canada if it doesn’t agree to his terms.

Speaking in advance of Labor Day, Trump also declared that workers’ wages are “going up” when they really aren’t.

A look at the claims:

JOBS

TRUMP, boasting about low unemployment rates: “This election is about jobs. And the beauty of the jobs, people that were stuck in one job, didn’t like it, they now got six different alternatives …They get one they like, and they are making more money. Wages are going up.” — Indiana rally Thursday.

THE FACTS: Wages aren’t going up when factoring in higher consumer prices.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics found that wages have declined in the past 12 months after adjusting for inflation, even with an expanding U.S. economy and strong corporate profits.

Due in part to higher costs for gasoline and housing, consumer prices increased 2.9 percent this summer from a year earlier, the most in six years. Adjusted for inflation, average hourly earnings for workers have fallen 0.2 percent.

The Labor Department said Americans are putting in more time on the job compared to last summer to keep their earnings about the same for now. Trump’s tariff disputes could exacerbate the situation by pushing up consumer prices further, reducing people’s purchasing power.

TRUMP: “The fact is that African/American unemployment is now the lowest in the history of our country.” — tweet Sunday.

THE FACTS: Not exactly. He omits important caveats.

Black unemployment did reach a record low, 5.9 percent, in May. But that figure is volatile on a monthly basis. That rate has since risen to 6.6 percent in July.

Trump is taking credit he doesn’t deserve for job growth, according to many economists who view the continued growth since the middle of 2009 as the primary explanation for the recent hiring. Meanwhile, there are multiple signs that the racial wealth gap is now worsening and the administration appears to have done little, if anything, to specifically address this challenge.

The most dramatic drop in black unemployment came under President Barack Obama, when it fell from a recession high of 16.8 percent in March 2010 to 7.8 percent in January 2017.

TRADE

TRUMP: “There is no political necessity to keep Canada in the new NAFTA deal. If we don’t make a fair deal for the U.S. after decades of abuse, Canada will be out. Congress should not interfere w/ these negotiations or I will simply terminate NAFTA entirely & we will be far better off.” — tweet Saturday.

THE FACTS: Not so fast. It’s questionable whether Trump can unilaterally exclude Canada from a deal to replace the three-nation NAFTA agreement, without the approval of Congress. Any such move would likely face lengthy legal and congressional challenges.

Trump wants to get a trade deal finalized by Dec. 1.

Several Republicans in the closely divided Senate are insisting that a revised NAFTA deal include Canada.

Trump administration negotiations to keep Canada in the reimagined trade bloc are to resume this week as Washington and Ottawa try to break a deadlock over issues such as Canada’s dairy market and U.S. efforts to shield drug companies from generic competition.

TRUMP: “This is one of the largest trade deals ever made. Maybe the largest trade deal ever made.” — phone call Aug. 27 with Mexican President Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto.

THE FACTS: Not even close. The Trans-Pacific Partnership, negotiated by the Obama administration, included the three NAFTA partners — United States, Canada and Mexico — plus Japan and eight other Pacific Rim countries. Trump withdrew the United States from the pact in his third day in office.

Even the TPP shrinks in comparison to the Uruguay Round of trade negotiations. Concluded in 1994, the round created the World Trade Organization and was signed by 123 countries. The Federal Reserve Bank of Boston found the following year that the WTO’s initial membership accounted for more than 90 percent of global economic output.

TRUMP: “We made the deal with Mexico. …We’re starting negotiations with Canada, pretty much immediately … It’s going to be a — it’s a smaller segment, as you know. Mexico is a very large trading partner.” — phone call Aug. 27 with Peña Nieto.

THE FACTS: Trump appears to be suggesting that Mexico is a bigger U.S. trading partner than Canada. That’s not the case. America’s two-way trade — exports plus imports — came to $680 billion with Canada last year. That’s compared to $622 billion with Mexico.

TRUMP: “I smile at Senators and others talking about how good free trade is for the U.S. What they don’t say is that we lose Jobs and over 800 Billion Dollars a year on really dumb Trade Deals….and these same countries Tariff us to death.” — tweet Tuesday.

THE FACTS: The $800 billion is a reference to America’s trade deficit last year. But Trump exaggerates the size of the gap between what the U.S. sells and what it buys from the rest of the world. The trade deficit in goods and services came to $552 billion in 2017. The United States ran an $807 billion deficit in goods such as cars and machinery. But Trump ignored America’s $255 billion surplus in services such as education and finance.

Mainstream economists also take issue with Trump’s assertion that trade deficits amount to a loss for the United States. The money didn’t just vanish. In exchange for what they spent on imports, Americans got the benefit of owning everything from made-in-China iPhones to French wine.

BORDER WALL

TRUMP: “The wall will be paid for very easily by Mexico. It will ultimately be paid for by Mexico.” — remarks Tuesday.

THE FACTS: Not according to Mexico. Immediately after Trump’s remarks, Mexican Foreign Minister Luis Videgaray tweeted to stress, once again, that his country won’t foot the bill for a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border.

Videgaray wrote that his country has been “absolutely clear” that Mexico “will NEVER pay for a wall.”

GOOGLE

VIDEO TWEETED BY TRUMP: “For years, Google promoted President Obama’s State of the Union on its homepage. When President Trump took office, Google stopped.” — tweet Wednesday.

THE FACTS: The video is incorrect as to Trump.

There’s no dispute that Google promoted Obama’s State of the Union speeches from 2012 to 2016, according to webpages captured by the Wayback Machine, an internet archive site.

In a statement, Google said it has not historically promoted “the first address to Congress by a new president, which is technically not a State of the Union address,” so it didn’t do so in either 2009, when Obama first took office, or 2017, Trump’s first year as president.

For 2018, several web pages captured by Wayback Machine show the Google homepage advertising a livestream of Trump’s speech with the words: “Live! Watch President Trump’s State of the Union address on YouTube.”

The archive site shows the webpages in Greenwich Mean Time, which is several hours ahead of the Eastern time zone in the U.S. That means the relevant images of the Google homepage promoting Trump’s prime-time Washington speech on Jan. 30 are dated one day later, on Jan. 31, Mark Graham, director of the Wayback Machine archive site, told The Associated Press.

Trump’s tweet follows his accusations, made without valid evidence, that Google and other U.S. tech companies are rigging search results so that they highlight negative coverage about him.

RUSSIA INVESTIGATION

TRUMP: “What’s going on at @CNN is happening, to different degrees, at other networks – with @NBCNews being the worst … When Lester Holt got caught fudging my tape on Russia, they were hurt badly!” — tweet Thursday.

THE FACTS: There is no evidence of the NBC interview having been “fudged” or doctored in any way, and the White House didn’t respond to requests regarding what Trump was referring to. NBC declined to comment.

In the interview, Trump referred in part to “this Russia thing” as a consideration in his decision to fire Comey. Special counsel Robert Mueller is investigating possible obstruction of justice in the Russia probe.

It’s possible Trump is frustrated that other comments from the same interview may have received less attention.

Minutes after he acknowledged that “this Russia thing” was on his mind when he fired Comey, Trump also acknowledged that he knew the decision to terminate him might actually prolong the investigation. In fact it did, with Mueller investigating the firing for potential obstruction.

His lawyers and other supporters have contended that that sentiment is actually helpful for the president, suggesting he couldn’t have been trying to obstruct the investigation by doing something that he knew would actually draw it out longer.

CLINTON EMAILS

TRUMP: “Report just out: ‘China hacked Hillary Clinton’s private Email Server.’ — tweet Tuesday.

TRUMP: “Hillary Clinton’s Emails, many of which are Classified Information, got hacked by China. Next move better be by the FBI & DOJ or, after all of their other missteps (Comey, McCabe, Strzok, Page, Ohr, FISA, Dirty Dossier etc.), their credibility will be forever gone!” — tweet Wednesday.

THE FACTS: Trump’s own law enforcement agencies dispute that.

Trump appears to be citing a story by the right-leaning Daily Caller publication, which reported that a Chinese-owned company in Washington, D.C., area hacked Clinton’s email server.

But FBI and Justice Department officials have said publicly that there was no evidence Clinton’s server was hacked by a foreign power.

A June report from the Justice Department’s inspector general on the FBI’s handling of the Clinton investigation said FBI specialists did not find evidence that the server had been hacked, with one forensics agent saying he felt “fairly confident that there wasn’t an intrusion.”

An FBI official said Wednesday after the Daily Caller story and Trump tweet that the “FBI has not found any evidence the servers were compromised.”
…

It was a week of exaggeration and outright fiction for President Donald Trump as he sought to push through a trade pact with Mexico, hyped numbers on jobs and raged against Google and the Russia investigation.

He wrongly describes the deal to replace the three-nation North American Free Trade Agreement as “one of the largest” and made a questionable assertion that he has unilateral authority to exclude Canada if it doesn’t agree to his terms.

Speaking in advance of Labor Day, Trump also declared that workers’ wages are “going up” when they really aren’t.

A look at the claims:

JOBS

TRUMP, boasting about low unemployment rates: “This election is about jobs. And the beauty of the jobs, people that were stuck in one job, didn’t like it, they now got six different alternatives …They get one they like, and they are making more money. Wages are going up.” — Indiana rally Thursday.

THE FACTS: Wages aren’t going up when factoring in higher consumer prices.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics found that wages have declined in the past 12 months after adjusting for inflation, even with an expanding U.S. economy and strong corporate profits.

Due in part to higher costs for gasoline and housing, consumer prices increased 2.9 percent this summer from a year earlier, the most in six years. Adjusted for inflation, average hourly earnings for workers have fallen 0.2 percent.

The Labor Department said Americans are putting in more time on the job compared to last summer to keep their earnings about the same for now. Trump’s tariff disputes could exacerbate the situation by pushing up consumer prices further, reducing people’s purchasing power.

TRUMP: “The fact is that African/American unemployment is now the lowest in the history of our country.” — tweet Sunday.

THE FACTS: Not exactly. He omits important caveats.

Black unemployment did reach a record low, 5.9 percent, in May. But that figure is volatile on a monthly basis. That rate has since risen to 6.6 percent in July.

Trump is taking credit he doesn’t deserve for job growth, according to many economists who view the continued growth since the middle of 2009 as the primary explanation for the recent hiring. Meanwhile, there are multiple signs that the racial wealth gap is now worsening and the administration appears to have done little, if anything, to specifically address this challenge.

The most dramatic drop in black unemployment came under President Barack Obama, when it fell from a recession high of 16.8 percent in March 2010 to 7.8 percent in January 2017.

TRADE

TRUMP: “There is no political necessity to keep Canada in the new NAFTA deal. If we don’t make a fair deal for the U.S. after decades of abuse, Canada will be out. Congress should not interfere w/ these negotiations or I will simply terminate NAFTA entirely & we will be far better off.” — tweet Saturday.

THE FACTS: Not so fast. It’s questionable whether Trump can unilaterally exclude Canada from a deal to replace the three-nation NAFTA agreement, without the approval of Congress. Any such move would likely face lengthy legal and congressional challenges.

Trump wants to get a trade deal finalized by Dec. 1.

Several Republicans in the closely divided Senate are insisting that a revised NAFTA deal include Canada.

Trump administration negotiations to keep Canada in the reimagined trade bloc are to resume this week as Washington and Ottawa try to break a deadlock over issues such as Canada’s dairy market and U.S. efforts to shield drug companies from generic competition.

TRUMP: “This is one of the largest trade deals ever made. Maybe the largest trade deal ever made.” — phone call Aug. 27 with Mexican President Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto.

THE FACTS: Not even close. The Trans-Pacific Partnership, negotiated by the Obama administration, included the three NAFTA partners — United States, Canada and Mexico — plus Japan and eight other Pacific Rim countries. Trump withdrew the United States from the pact in his third day in office.

Even the TPP shrinks in comparison to the Uruguay Round of trade negotiations. Concluded in 1994, the round created the World Trade Organization and was signed by 123 countries. The Federal Reserve Bank of Boston found the following year that the WTO’s initial membership accounted for more than 90 percent of global economic output.

TRUMP: “We made the deal with Mexico. …We’re starting negotiations with Canada, pretty much immediately … It’s going to be a — it’s a smaller segment, as you know. Mexico is a very large trading partner.” — phone call Aug. 27 with Peña Nieto.

THE FACTS: Trump appears to be suggesting that Mexico is a bigger U.S. trading partner than Canada. That’s not the case. America’s two-way trade — exports plus imports — came to $680 billion with Canada last year. That’s compared to $622 billion with Mexico.

TRUMP: “I smile at Senators and others talking about how good free trade is for the U.S. What they don’t say is that we lose Jobs and over 800 Billion Dollars a year on really dumb Trade Deals….and these same countries Tariff us to death.” — tweet Tuesday.

THE FACTS: The $800 billion is a reference to America’s trade deficit last year. But Trump exaggerates the size of the gap between what the U.S. sells and what it buys from the rest of the world. The trade deficit in goods and services came to $552 billion in 2017. The United States ran an $807 billion deficit in goods such as cars and machinery. But Trump ignored America’s $255 billion surplus in services such as education and finance.

Mainstream economists also take issue with Trump’s assertion that trade deficits amount to a loss for the United States. The money didn’t just vanish. In exchange for what they spent on imports, Americans got the benefit of owning everything from made-in-China iPhones to French wine.

BORDER WALL

TRUMP: “The wall will be paid for very easily by Mexico. It will ultimately be paid for by Mexico.” — remarks Tuesday.

THE FACTS: Not according to Mexico. Immediately after Trump’s remarks, Mexican Foreign Minister Luis Videgaray tweeted to stress, once again, that his country won’t foot the bill for a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border.

Videgaray wrote that his country has been “absolutely clear” that Mexico “will NEVER pay for a wall.”

GOOGLE

VIDEO TWEETED BY TRUMP: “For years, Google promoted President Obama’s State of the Union on its homepage. When President Trump took office, Google stopped.” — tweet Wednesday.

THE FACTS: The video is incorrect as to Trump.

There’s no dispute that Google promoted Obama’s State of the Union speeches from 2012 to 2016, according to webpages captured by the Wayback Machine, an internet archive site.

In a statement, Google said it has not historically promoted “the first address to Congress by a new president, which is technically not a State of the Union address,” so it didn’t do so in either 2009, when Obama first took office, or 2017, Trump’s first year as president.

For 2018, several web pages captured by Wayback Machine show the Google homepage advertising a livestream of Trump’s speech with the words: “Live! Watch President Trump’s State of the Union address on YouTube.”

The archive site shows the webpages in Greenwich Mean Time, which is several hours ahead of the Eastern time zone in the U.S. That means the relevant images of the Google homepage promoting Trump’s prime-time Washington speech on Jan. 30 are dated one day later, on Jan. 31, Mark Graham, director of the Wayback Machine archive site, told The Associated Press.

Trump’s tweet follows his accusations, made without valid evidence, that Google and other U.S. tech companies are rigging search results so that they highlight negative coverage about him.

RUSSIA INVESTIGATION

TRUMP: “What’s going on at @CNN is happening, to different degrees, at other networks – with @NBCNews being the worst … When Lester Holt got caught fudging my tape on Russia, they were hurt badly!” — tweet Thursday.

THE FACTS: There is no evidence of the NBC interview having been “fudged” or doctored in any way, and the White House didn’t respond to requests regarding what Trump was referring to. NBC declined to comment.

In the interview, Trump referred in part to “this Russia thing” as a consideration in his decision to fire Comey. Special counsel Robert Mueller is investigating possible obstruction of justice in the Russia probe.

It’s possible Trump is frustrated that other comments from the same interview may have received less attention.

Minutes after he acknowledged that “this Russia thing” was on his mind when he fired Comey, Trump also acknowledged that he knew the decision to terminate him might actually prolong the investigation. In fact it did, with Mueller investigating the firing for potential obstruction.

His lawyers and other supporters have contended that that sentiment is actually helpful for the president, suggesting he couldn’t have been trying to obstruct the investigation by doing something that he knew would actually draw it out longer.

CLINTON EMAILS

TRUMP: “Report just out: ‘China hacked Hillary Clinton’s private Email Server.’ — tweet Tuesday.

TRUMP: “Hillary Clinton’s Emails, many of which are Classified Information, got hacked by China. Next move better be by the FBI & DOJ or, after all of their other missteps (Comey, McCabe, Strzok, Page, Ohr, FISA, Dirty Dossier etc.), their credibility will be forever gone!” — tweet Wednesday.

THE FACTS: Trump’s own law enforcement agencies dispute that.

Trump appears to be citing a story by the right-leaning Daily Caller publication, which reported that a Chinese-owned company in Washington, D.C., area hacked Clinton’s email server.

But FBI and Justice Department officials have said publicly that there was no evidence Clinton’s server was hacked by a foreign power.

A June report from the Justice Department’s inspector general on the FBI’s handling of the Clinton investigation said FBI specialists did not find evidence that the server had been hacked, with one forensics agent saying he felt “fairly confident that there wasn’t an intrusion.”

An FBI official said Wednesday after the Daily Caller story and Trump tweet that the “FBI has not found any evidence the servers were compromised.”
…

Pakistan has dismissed as “incorrect” reports the United States has canceled $300 million in military aid to the country, saying Washington owed the money to Islamabad for expenses incurred on fighting terrorism.

Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood made the remarks a day after the Pentagon disclosed it decided to scrap the funds because Pakistan was not doing enough against terrorist groups inside its borders.

“It is not a cut in any [U.S.] aid, it is not assistance.  This is our own money which we have used for improving regional security situation and they had to reimburse it to us,” Qureshi told reporters Sunday in Islamabad.

The controversy is the latest to hit Islamabad’s troubled relationship with Washington, coming a few days before Secretary of State Mike Pompeo together with General Joseph Dunford, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, are scheduled to visit the South Asian nation.

This will be Washington’s first high-level dialogue with Islamabad since the new government of Prime Minister Imran Khan assumed office following recent elections.

Qureshi confirmed his American counterpart will visit Pakistan Wednesday and downplayed suggestions the funding row has fueled mutual tensions.  

The aid the Pentagon has decided to scrap was to come from a so-called U.S. Coalition Support Funds established to help Pakistan counter terrorism and secure its volatile porous border with Afghanistan.

“Due to a lack of Pakistani decisive actions in support of the South Asia Strategy the remaining $300 million was reprogrammed,” said Pentagon spokesman Lieutenant Colonel Kone Faulkner on Saturday.

The spokesman explained the plan will be submitted to Congress for approval and it will bring the total amount withheld from Pakistan under the Coalition Support Funds to $800 million since early this year.

Pressure on Taliban

Observers see the cancellation of Coalition Support Funds funds as pressure on Islamabad to prevent Taliban insurgents from using Pakistani soil for plotting attacks inside Afghanistan.

“This is not something that we were not expecting,” a senior Pakistani security official told VOA on condition of anonymity, citing continued deterioration in bilateral ties. In January, U.S. President Donald Trump suspended all military assistance to Pakistan accusing the country of rewarding past assistance with “nothing but lies and deceit.”

Pakistani officials defend their counterterrorism record and cite “massive human and economic losses” militancy has inflicted on the country after it joined the U.S. war. Islamabad rejects U.S. accusations of inaction, saying they stem from Washington’s military failures in Afghanistan.

Prime Minister Khan told reporters on Friday his government will hold talks with Pompeo’s delegation to seek a “mutually beneficial” relationship with the United States that will be based on “mutual respect.”

Senator Mushahid Hussain, who heads the foreign affairs committee of the upper house of parliament, tells VOA the stoppage of $300 million will undermine Pompeo’s visit.

“On the eve of the most important visit to Pakistan by an official American [delegation] since the new government took office, Pakistan-American relations are hanging by a thread,” Hussain cautioned.

The influential Pakistani Senator alleged an“outmoded, zero-sum “ideologically-driven” U.S. foreign policy is making Washington “increasingly less relevant to Asia than before.” Hussain cited tension in the U.S. relations with China, Russia, and Iran.

Pakistani officials insist that Coalition Support Funds funds also cover the costs on maintenance of the country’s ground and air lines of communications, commonly known as GLOCS and ALOCS respectively, U.S. and NATO use to ferry key supplies to their troops in the landlocked neighboring country. They say Pakistan is using its own funds and fencing the country’s long porous border with Afghanistan to promote regional stability.

New alliances

Trump’s decision to suspend military assistance to Pakistan has also shut training and educational programs for Pakistani military officers under the bilateral cooperation.

In a rare cooperation agreement with Pakistan last month, Moscow agreed to open doors of its military institutions for training Pakistani army officers, underscoring intensified efforts Russia has been making to seek closer relations with Islamabad.

China has also deepened ties with Pakistan in all fields and is investing unprecedented billions of dollars in the country to help its traditional ally overcome its economic and energy challenges.

Beijing, Moscow, Tehran and Islamabad have lately increased political and security cooperation to jointly fight the emergence of Islamic State in Afghanistan.

But top American military commanders accuse Russia of trying to destabilize and undercut international gains in Afghanistan by maintaining ties to the Taliban insurgency, charges Moscow denies.

 
…

Pakistan has dismissed as “incorrect” reports the United States has canceled $300 million in military aid to the country, saying Washington owed the money to Islamabad for expenses incurred on fighting terrorism.

Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood made the remarks a day after the Pentagon disclosed it decided to scrap the funds because Pakistan was not doing enough against terrorist groups inside its borders.

“It is not a cut in any [U.S.] aid, it is not assistance.  This is our own money which we have used for improving regional security situation and they had to reimburse it to us,” Qureshi told reporters Sunday in Islamabad.

The controversy is the latest to hit Islamabad’s troubled relationship with Washington, coming a few days before Secretary of State Mike Pompeo together with General Joseph Dunford, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, are scheduled to visit the South Asian nation.

This will be Washington’s first high-level dialogue with Islamabad since the new government of Prime Minister Imran Khan assumed office following recent elections.

Qureshi confirmed his American counterpart will visit Pakistan Wednesday and downplayed suggestions the funding row has fueled mutual tensions.  

The aid the Pentagon has decided to scrap was to come from a so-called U.S. Coalition Support Funds established to help Pakistan counter terrorism and secure its volatile porous border with Afghanistan.

“Due to a lack of Pakistani decisive actions in support of the South Asia Strategy the remaining $300 million was reprogrammed,” said Pentagon spokesman Lieutenant Colonel Kone Faulkner on Saturday.

The spokesman explained the plan will be submitted to Congress for approval and it will bring the total amount withheld from Pakistan under the Coalition Support Funds to $800 million since early this year.

Pressure on Taliban

Observers see the cancellation of Coalition Support Funds funds as pressure on Islamabad to prevent Taliban insurgents from using Pakistani soil for plotting attacks inside Afghanistan.

“This is not something that we were not expecting,” a senior Pakistani security official told VOA on condition of anonymity, citing continued deterioration in bilateral ties. In January, U.S. President Donald Trump suspended all military assistance to Pakistan accusing the country of rewarding past assistance with “nothing but lies and deceit.”

Pakistani officials defend their counterterrorism record and cite “massive human and economic losses” militancy has inflicted on the country after it joined the U.S. war. Islamabad rejects U.S. accusations of inaction, saying they stem from Washington’s military failures in Afghanistan.

Prime Minister Khan told reporters on Friday his government will hold talks with Pompeo’s delegation to seek a “mutually beneficial” relationship with the United States that will be based on “mutual respect.”

Senator Mushahid Hussain, who heads the foreign affairs committee of the upper house of parliament, tells VOA the stoppage of $300 million will undermine Pompeo’s visit.

“On the eve of the most important visit to Pakistan by an official American [delegation] since the new government took office, Pakistan-American relations are hanging by a thread,” Hussain cautioned.

The influential Pakistani Senator alleged an“outmoded, zero-sum “ideologically-driven” U.S. foreign policy is making Washington “increasingly less relevant to Asia than before.” Hussain cited tension in the U.S. relations with China, Russia, and Iran.

Pakistani officials insist that Coalition Support Funds funds also cover the costs on maintenance of the country’s ground and air lines of communications, commonly known as GLOCS and ALOCS respectively, U.S. and NATO use to ferry key supplies to their troops in the landlocked neighboring country. They say Pakistan is using its own funds and fencing the country’s long porous border with Afghanistan to promote regional stability.

New alliances

Trump’s decision to suspend military assistance to Pakistan has also shut training and educational programs for Pakistani military officers under the bilateral cooperation.

In a rare cooperation agreement with Pakistan last month, Moscow agreed to open doors of its military institutions for training Pakistani army officers, underscoring intensified efforts Russia has been making to seek closer relations with Islamabad.

China has also deepened ties with Pakistan in all fields and is investing unprecedented billions of dollars in the country to help its traditional ally overcome its economic and energy challenges.

Beijing, Moscow, Tehran and Islamabad have lately increased political and security cooperation to jointly fight the emergence of Islamic State in Afghanistan.

But top American military commanders accuse Russia of trying to destabilize and undercut international gains in Afghanistan by maintaining ties to the Taliban insurgency, charges Moscow denies.

 
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A U.S. Senate panel begins confirmation hearings Tuesday on the nomination of federal appellate court judge Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court, a pivotal life-time appointment President Donald Trump hopes will cement a conservative-leaning majority on the court for years to come.

Kavanaugh will face tough questioning from lawmakers on the Senate Judiciary Committee about his views on a range of issues, including abortion, the powers of a special prosecutor to investigate Trump and Russian meddling in the 2016 election, the conflict between religious beliefs and gay rights, environmental controls and numerous other issues.

The White House is hoping the full Senate will confirm the 53-year-old Kavanaugh to the nine-member court later in September, in time for him to fill the vacancy left by the retirement of Justice Anthony Kennedy when the court opens a new term on October 1.

Kennedy most often sided with the court’s four-member conservative bloc, but provided a fifth vote with court liberals to reject efforts to curb abortion and gay rights or limit universities in their use of affirmative action to open up admissions to more racial minorities.

Most independent Supreme Court analysts are predicting, based on hundreds of decisions that Kavanaugh has written at the appellate court level, that Kavanaugh, if confirmed, would most often side with the conservatives on the court, rather than prove to be the swing vote that Kennedy often provided on key issues favoring liberal interpretations of U.S. law.

The eventual full Senate vote on Kavanaugh is expected to be close, with Republicans holding a narrow 50-49 majority with the death of Republican Senator John McCain of Arizona. But Arizona Governor Doug Ducey is required by state law to name another Republican to replace McCain and says he expects to do so in the coming days.

If all 51 Republicans support Kavanaugh, he would become the court’s 114th justice. At the moment, no Republicans have said they will reject Kavanaugh’s nomination and no Democrats have said they will support it.

Democrats are expected to vote overwhelmingly against Kavanaugh’s nomination, although three Democratic senators who voted for Trump’s first high court nominee, Neil Gorsuch, have yet to voice opposition or support for Kavanaugh, pending the confirmation hearing.

Democratic Senators Joe Donnelly in Indiana, Heidi Heitkamp in North Dakota and Joe Manchin in West Virginia all face tough re-election battles in November in states Trump won easily in the 2016 election and could face pressure from voters to approve the Trump court selection.

Kavanaugh has had a long career in Washington that spans work two decades ago on the impeachment investigation of former President Bill Clinton, as a White House aide to former President George W. Bush, and most recently 12 years on the U.S. District Court of Appeals in Washington, a court often considered a stepping stone to a Supreme Court seat.
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A U.S. Senate panel begins confirmation hearings Tuesday on the nomination of federal appellate court judge Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court, a pivotal life-time appointment President Donald Trump hopes will cement a conservative-leaning majority on the court for years to come.

Kavanaugh will face tough questioning from lawmakers on the Senate Judiciary Committee about his views on a range of issues, including abortion, the powers of a special prosecutor to investigate Trump and Russian meddling in the 2016 election, the conflict between religious beliefs and gay rights, environmental controls and numerous other issues.

The White House is hoping the full Senate will confirm the 53-year-old Kavanaugh to the nine-member court later in September, in time for him to fill the vacancy left by the retirement of Justice Anthony Kennedy when the court opens a new term on October 1.

Kennedy most often sided with the court’s four-member conservative bloc, but provided a fifth vote with court liberals to reject efforts to curb abortion and gay rights or limit universities in their use of affirmative action to open up admissions to more racial minorities.

Most independent Supreme Court analysts are predicting, based on hundreds of decisions that Kavanaugh has written at the appellate court level, that Kavanaugh, if confirmed, would most often side with the conservatives on the court, rather than prove to be the swing vote that Kennedy often provided on key issues favoring liberal interpretations of U.S. law.

The eventual full Senate vote on Kavanaugh is expected to be close, with Republicans holding a narrow 50-49 majority with the death of Republican Senator John McCain of Arizona. But Arizona Governor Doug Ducey is required by state law to name another Republican to replace McCain and says he expects to do so in the coming days.

If all 51 Republicans support Kavanaugh, he would become the court’s 114th justice. At the moment, no Republicans have said they will reject Kavanaugh’s nomination and no Democrats have said they will support it.

Democrats are expected to vote overwhelmingly against Kavanaugh’s nomination, although three Democratic senators who voted for Trump’s first high court nominee, Neil Gorsuch, have yet to voice opposition or support for Kavanaugh, pending the confirmation hearing.

Democratic Senators Joe Donnelly in Indiana, Heidi Heitkamp in North Dakota and Joe Manchin in West Virginia all face tough re-election battles in November in states Trump won easily in the 2016 election and could face pressure from voters to approve the Trump court selection.

Kavanaugh has had a long career in Washington that spans work two decades ago on the impeachment investigation of former President Bill Clinton, as a White House aide to former President George W. Bush, and most recently 12 years on the U.S. District Court of Appeals in Washington, a court often considered a stepping stone to a Supreme Court seat.
…

U.S. forces in Afghanistan say they targeted and killed the leader of Islamic State Khorasan Province last month in eastern Afghanistan.  

ISKP is the branch of IS operating in Afghanistan, Pakistan, and the vicinity.  

Abu Sayeed Bajaur, also known as Abu Saad Orakzai, is the third ISKP leader killed by coalition forces in the past two years.

The announcement came Sunday, when a new U.S. commander took charge of the NATO and U.S. forces in Afghanistan.  General Scott Miller said a vital part of his mission in Afghanistan is to keep the country from becoming a safe haven for terrorist groups. 

“America and her allies are in Afghanistan to maintain pressure on the networked, trans-regional terrorists attempting to plot, resource and direct attacks from here,” he said.

While ISKP has been facing pressure in Afghanistan and the area under its direct control has been reduced by increased U.S. air strikes, including dropping the biggest non-nuclear bomb called a Massive Ordinance Air Blast last year, it has managed to carry out more brazen attacks in various parts of the country.  

Last month, a deadly attack in a Shi’ite neighborhood killed dozens of students giving university entrance exam.  Shiites have been frequent targets of ISKP in Afghanistan.

In 2017, Nangarhar, parts of which have been an ISKP stronghold since 2015, proved to be the deadliest place on earth for the U.S. forces.  This was where they lost one third of the 21 U.S. service members killed in battle that year.

Despite the violence, General John Nicholson, who handed over command to General Miller, insisted the group is not growing.

“They have been able to replenish a portion of their losses by recruiting from other violent extremist organizations,” he said in an email statement to VOA.  “Despite this recruiting, they are losing fighters and losing ground.”

Jeff Seldin contributed to this report.

 
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